(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for packaging portions of a substance such as food within sealed packages.
(2) Prior Art
Food products can be packaged in individual portions using containers of a material such as molded plastic with heat sealed plastic film or aluminum foil covers. These containers protect the food against oxidation and moisture loss.
Individual filling of each container by hand and individual sealing of the container by hand is known. This is a very slow method and relatively expensive because of the labor involved. Accordingly, such hand packaging is useful for applications requiring only the smallest of quantities.
Automatic machines for filling and sealing containers are also known, but most of these machines are complicated in their construction and represent a substantial monetary investment. Accordingly, such machines are suitable for applications requiring large numbers of packaged portions where the cost of such a machine can be justified. Automatic machines can, for example, fill 160 containers per minute and can initially cost in the neighborhood of $60,000.00.
There is a lack of an apparatus which costs considerably less than a fully automatic machine, yet packages individual portions considerably faster than manually doing each step in the packaging sequences. Thus it relieves a user, not large enough to fully justify an automatic machine, of the expense of such a machine and provides an alternative to the high labor costs of completely manual packaging. These are some of the problems this invention overcomes.